Smoke and Mirrors
by Coltrane Revival
Summary: A slightly more dysfunctional approach to the Gail/Holly story in which Gail is a little more hesitant to dive into a relationship, and Holly is a little less patient with her antics. Begins a couple weeks after season 4 and deviates from season 5. Rated T for now, will bump up to M


**Title: Smoke and Mirrors**

**Rating: T (will increase to M in future chapters)**

**Author's Note: I haven't written fan fiction in at least a year or two, but I thought I'd try my hand at Gail/Holly. This is my first attempt at writing them, so it might take me a little while to get their voices down.**

**The reason I'm writing this is because I've read some amazing Gail/Holly fics on here (y'all rock), but all of it seems very fluff-centric and established relationship-centric. I'm all for a happy Gail, but she's simply not a relationship person. It always seems a little out of character to me when I read about her and Holly U-Hauling and turning into the model domestic couple. I also feel like Holly's a little too patient with Gail sometimes. So I decided to play around with a bit of a different approach. Mostly, this fic will serve as my own personal playground with these two.**

**For the sake of the story, the events of Season 5 have not happened, at least not yet. Perrick's return also hasn't happened here yet, although Nick is still out of Gail's life. I thought it would be interesting to play with the Perrick thing a bit later, now that Holly is in the picture...**

**Introduction**

[Two weeks earlier]

_The cold Toronto wind bit Holly's skin as she stepped out of the warmth of the Penny. The air hitting her face was refreshing, helping stifle her growing nausea - not caused by the alcohol, she suspected, but by the frustration built up in her stomach from the past few hours._

_"Holly. HOLLY. Where are you going?" Gail barked, struggling to catch up to the doctor. "Holly!" She grabbed the other woman's wrist._

_"What exactly are we doing, Gail?" Holly snapped, spinning around to face the blonde. _

_Gail dropped Holly's wrist and gestured to the night sky around them, her movements a little sloppy from the drinks she had had. "Walking, or something? You tell me," she offered lamely._

_"You know exactly what I mean," Holly snapped. Gail subconsciously took a step back, surprised and unsettled by her voice. She had never heard Holly's voice drip with so much hostility, especially directed at her._

_When Gail remained silent, Holly continued. "What was that in there? What - what is all this? You know, I can deal with complexity, I really can, but this is something different entirely. One second, you kiss me, the next, you're upset I showed up to check on you at work. Then you want me at the hospital for moral support, and then you don't call me for three days. Now you invite me for drinks with your closest friends, but bristle when I so much as _look_ at you for too long. So I have to ask you this. What exactly are we doing?"_

_Gail exhaled slowly as she leaned back against the lamppost. She glanced up at the stars for a few seconds before her eyelids fluttered closed. "I don't know. Not exactly."_

_Holly choked out a small laugh and buried her hands in her coat pockets. "Of course not." She had been so good about handling the cop cautiously, but her careful temperament had abandoned her hours ago. "Gail, I get that you have baggage, and I get that this is new for you. I really do. But that doesn't make it fair." The anger and energy rushed out of her body, leaving her just feeling...deflated. She was so tired. Of the games, of the chase, of the bullshit. _

_"I know. I know it's not fair." Gail put her hands in her pockets too, mirroring Holly's position. She avoided eye contact, instead watching her breath turn into fog as she exhaled into the cold air. "Look, I'm trying to make sense of things as best I can. I really care about you, Holly, but I don't want to rush into anything."_

_"I can do slow, Gail. And I can do not labeling it. What I can't do is you not leveling with me, not telling me where we stand. What I can't do is spend the evening with you and your division, and not know if me being around your friends will be a cause of comfort or anxiety for you." _

_"It's not that."_

_Holly swallowed and looked at the ground in front of her. "Look, we both have work tomorrow. We'll talk about this later. Or we won't, I don't know. It doesn't really matter at this point." _

_The door to the Penny opened behind them, and they both turned to see Dov, Chris, and Chloe emerging. "Yeah, I'm gonna go."_

_"Hol." She turned again, allowing herself to look into the pair of ice blue eyes she was falling so hard for. Gail licked her lips lightly, not breaking the eye contact. "We're going to talk about this."_

_Holly just looked back at her, not sure whether she believed the other woman or not. "Good night, Gail," she offered sadly, and walked away._

**Chapter 1**

They never really talked about it. Yes, Gail had called her the very next day (which honestly surprised Holly - she expected the cop to perform one of her disappearing acts), but the conversation had all been kind of...emotionally detached. Gail said she was sorry she made Holly upset, and Holly brushed it off by saying the booze had made her unusually emotional, and Gail said she really liked Holly but wasn't ready for a romantic relationship, and Holly thanked her for her honesty and said that's all she needed to know, and Gail said Holly's friendship was one of the most important things in her life and that she hoped she hadn't damaged it. Fighting against her desire to end it entirely, fighting against the knowledge that she would never be able to truly view Gail as _just_ a friend, Holly assured her that their friendship would remain unchanged. She could hear Gail sigh with relief as they finished up their phone call, and the second Holly finally pressed the little red "End call" button, she buried her face in her hands. "Holly, you dumb, dumb lesbian," she had said aloud.

Okay, so maybe they did talk about it, Holly thought to herself as she mindlessly ran DNA samples. She had just hoped for (and maybe even expected, if she was being honest) some sort of follow-up. A declaration of feelings, a wanton kiss, something, _anything_ that betrayed that Gail was struggling with this as much as she was. But there was nothing. Holly was secretly infuriated that Gail reverted back to their normal friendship with such ease. Lunches, movie nights, even the occasional drinks without so much as a sidelong romantically charged look.

The worst part was that Holly was the talk-about-her-problems type, and she had no one to talk about it with. Talking to Gail about her frustrations was out of the question for obvious reasons, and talking to her other friends always left her feeling worse than she already did. They never _really_ dated, so she didn't qualify for the Obligatory Break-up Comfort Package (four boxes of tissues, three boxes of chocolate, two bad rom-coms, and one week of having to listen to her bitch and cry without getting to complain about it), and the fact that Gail had a history of exclusively dating men made all of her friends write her off as That Straight Girl.

"Everyone has a heartbreaking encounter with the notorious Straight Girl at some point, Holly," Rachel said once in an effort to comfort her. "Yours just happened a little later in life than it usually does."

Holly had tried her best to defend Gail's attraction to girls as legitimate, but her pleas of, "no, but seriously, she kisses _super _lesbianly," "she can out-drink even the _guys_," "she pulls off her uniform tie _really_ well," and "I definitely caught her checking out Andy's ass once even though she keeps on denying it," never seemed to convince any of her friends.

"Straight, my ass," she muttered to herself as she fiddled with the computer's keyboard.

"Say something, Stewart?" Carl asked, glancing up his microscope.

"What?" Holly said blankly. "Oh. Nope. Thanks."

Carl gave her a strange look and returned to his work, and Holly returned to her solo pity party, until her computer program started beeping, indicating a DNA match.

"Holy shit," Holly breathed to herself as she gazed at the screen. "Holy shit."

**That's all for now! Is this worth continuing? I'm torn between taking this the dark/angsty route or the more humorous route, or blending the two, so any thoughts about what you'd like to see would be much appreciated.**


End file.
